More Bad News in Louisiana: Intelligent Design in the Classrooms

As if hurricanes and BP oil spills aren't enough, now there's another new calamity headed for Louisiana. The School Board of Livingston Parish wants to include "intelligent design" into their science curriculum.

So Louisiana's biggest city is destroyed by a hurricane, their coastline is fouled by the largest oil spill in U.S. history, and now they want to foul the minds of their children by crippling their educations.

If this measure passes, two things will happen. First, the future scientist children of this parish, the ones who might really have something to contribute to humanity's welfare, will be seriously handicapped when they try to go to college. They'll either be relegated to second-class colleges, or they'll have to do a lot of catch-up work to be on par with other students who learned real science.

Second, this is certain to spark a lawsuit, since it is in fact unconstitutional to teach Intelligent Design in public schools.

What a waste. The school board could be spending its money educating its children in real science, but no. They want to teach two-thousand-year-old mythology wrapped up in pseudo science, and to spend their money fighting the inevitable high-cost lawsuit that will come from parents who feel that their children deserve a real education.

The Livingston Parish school board ought to respect the United States Constitution.

Intelligent Design Raises its Ugly Head in Louisiana

One of the key themes in The Religion Virus is that beliefs we learn in childhood, no matter how illogical or wrong, become entrenched in our brains. It is very hard for us to unlearn the fundamental beliefs that we learn as children. The chapter, Billy the Racist, which helps to illustrate this point, is the story of a man I met during the three years I lived in New Orleans. Although my time there was brief, I still have a special place in my heart for that wonderful, wild city, and all the friends I made while living there.

I was saddened, but not surprised, to read this morning that the Louisiana State Legislature has once again introduced religion, under the guise of "Intelligent Design," into their school curriculum. (The New Scientist has good coverage of this story.) In writing The Religion Virus, I got a very deep understanding of just why religious people are so determined to infect their children with the virus at an early age. Louisiana is, in many ways, more "third world" than many third-world countries, and the religious attitudes there are almost medieval.

So I can't say I was surprised that these same people have hijacked the legislature of State of Louisiana to help ensure that all the children get thoroughly infected with religion memes. Not surprised, but saddened. It seems like for every two steps forward, there's one step backward, and the Louisiana State Legislature took a big step backwards yesterday.